


Limits

by DarkFantasy



Category: The Shape of Water (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Other, Rants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-11 05:00:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13517088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkFantasy/pseuds/DarkFantasy
Summary: He wasn't  'the asset', he was an amphibian man.That is what he was in truth. Not an object, but alive, feeling, living, and breathing.She was the only one who saw him as such.





	Limits

**Author's Note:**

> The script I found online called him the amphibian man.
> 
> I'm shaking like crazy. My stomach hurts.

Like any living thing, he breathed, he ate, and he mated.

But more than anything... He also felt.

With all his heart.

And that was really all he had. 

 

A heart.

 

It wasn't that he was dumb or stupid, or didn't have a brain. It's just that his heart  **was** his control center.

Everything he learned etched deep into his fibre. It was the only reason he had such a perfect learning curve... Hell it wasn't a curve but a danm vertical line.

 

He never had a head versus heart problem. He simply lived wholly.

Of course he had other organs as well, but there were little to none human equivalents. It was just his heart that was the most human thing about him.

 

And with this heart... With his heart he saw her.

Saw that she was different from the rest. 

 

Saw that she wasn't human. And that she was kind, and gentle, and generous.... And so. So very soft.

Impossibility so.

She moved on earth like he moved in water. Hips swaying to invisible music only she could hear... And sometimes, when he was one with her, he could hear it with his heart. Echoing throughout his body in pleasurable waves.

He never learned what she was, never found out. But if he had stayed on the surface longer, he would've learned a new word to call her.

If he had stayed, if he had learned more... He would've called her Siren.

 

A beautiful creature with a voice so enchanting, that it ensnared you to follow her to her world. Even if it killed you.

And that's exactly what he did. Over and over. Again and again.

 

He knew it was bad, that he would die slowly this way. But he didn't care. He only lived to die peacefully in her arms, her sweet soft skin pressed as closely as possible.

Of course he was being selfish. But life was fleeting, and he knew that there would  _never_ be another like her.

 

His siren.

 

Her song was internal. Intimate.

He only truly heard it when his body touched hers. Ever curious to learn more, and more.

He wanted to hear all of it. Every song she could ever sing. He never wanted it to stop.

He wanted to forever drown in her sound. Her music as comforting as water.

He was home when he was with her.

He was alive. He knew this was what it meant to live.

 

He'd die, just to keep hearing her.

 

 

He had grown addicted to her song. Her movement and dance. Everything about her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**_The bullets forced their way inside him._ **

An unexpected, extremely unwanted, unnatural intrusion.

He never heard her warning.

She couldn't sing out loud like her friends did. She couldn't warn him. 

 

He sunk to the floor, taken completely by surprise.

He had heard the sounds before. 

He just never knew they could harm him this way.

The bullets never hit his organs. He wasn't like them after all.

His heart wasn't hidden inside him.

 

His heart was outside him. In heels and under fake skins.

His heart was with her.

 

He was focused on finding the intuders inside him, slowly healing, reeling from the fact that such a weapon existed. He had never encountered it before.

 

It was similar to the occasional teeth he used was to. Except these things dug much deeper.

As he retreated inside himself to heal, the world around him muted.

 

He was tired.

Tired and worn down to the bone...

 

It took all of his energy to live outside. To live in her world...

 

Should he just le-

 

The sound of another gunshot reached into him.

 

Violently he resurfaced, seeing his mate. Her face still. Her body unmoving.

.DEAD.

LIFELESS.

 

**SILENT.**

 

Her hand... She was touching him...

And yet. There was no sound. No music.

 

... No. 

 

No life.

 

 

He had never known the word for anger. He had never felt it. He had felt hate. But the fire. The raw energy.

The destruction.

 

This. This new emotion.

This new feeling.

 

He had never felt so.

So.

 

So pained.

So hurt.

So undeniably crippled and empty.

 

Like a true beast unleashed, he stood. Tall. Powerful.

 

This man. This human.

There will be no escape.

 

His eyes lock onto his target. Paralyzing him.

Distantly he is aware of the moment the bullets pop out of him. 

And the man in front of him trembles to his very core.

 

He is only allowed a moment of utter fear before he chokes on his own blood. 

 

If he could, he would've ripped the body apart. Limb from limb. Spent all of his energy turning he body to chum. But he heard her move, even if it was slight, and forgot all about the dead monster on the ground.

He saw her.

 

She lived. 

She was alive.

 

His body hurt from relief.

And as he moved carefully to embrace her, he shook on the inside.

This must be what fear felt like. True fear. Real horror.

 

This cold ice. This empty void.

He picked her up, cradling her like nothing but gentle air. 

 

He cried on the inside.

 

She knew his pain and tenderly caressed his face. 

 

And for the first time. She spoke to him.

Voice soft. Gentle.

Echoing inside his head.

 

Her eyes said. 'Take me with you.'

 

'Let me be, a part of your world.'

 

 

So he jumped.

 

With her in his arms, he jumped.

 

 

The water here carried a filth he had never known. But he didn't care.

He set her free. Watched her sink.

The most beautiful vision he'd ever seen... immediately his hands went to her wound. 

And using all of his energy. All of his life force, everything he had left of him. 

He spent it all just to heal her. To give her enough blood, to stitch up her side. To close the gaping hole in her body...

 

 

 

She kissed his corpse. 

 

She let the water take her deeper.

 

 

 

She'd be with him soon.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I swear it's not drugs. I just drank too much expresso.
> 
>  
> 
> In all seriousness, when I read the script I noticed that there were a few clever things they did. One of them was the narration, and the point of view it was coming from. It was unreliable. It was from an outside party, and it was worded as if Giles didn't know the truth of the ending. He simply made it happy to keep himself at peace.
> 
> The second thing was Elisa's beginning. She was a baby found in the water, with perfect scars.  
> It was almost too fishy, like the writers wanted to hint that she wasn't all human. They describe her scars as a perfect pair, mirroring each other on the sides of her neck.


End file.
